Written piece
Us
Nosipho Dube
Eswatini
About this piece
My poem is about erasure of a people by both external and internal forces. It fights for existence in the mist of the today world. It also points out that love and empathy are what will save us from the world we're creating.
Us
We have killed our matriarchs
The rest we buried slowly
beneath convenience and noise.
Our values are diluted in borrowed languages,
cultures,
selling us back the bones
of who we were.
Much to their benefit
much to our vulnerability.
We have traded soul for brass,
Us curdling into obedience and dominion,
behind which, those in power,
narrate and determine the world.
Amid the loss and hierarchy
Our hearts beat beyond horizons.
Love embroidering us together
I wish to speak to the world,
but I fear my words are not tender enough.
Perhaps they will not assuage anger,
perhaps they will not comfort the frightened
silence that sits between us.